Arusha, The Hague, Sierra Leone...

Arusha is a dusty Tanzanian town, located at the foot of Kilimanjaro. The seat of the International Criminal Court for war crimes committed in 1994 in neighboring Rwanda has been located here for seven years. In two months, at least 800.000 members of the Tutsi tribe were killed, which qualifies this tragic event as the "fastest" genocide in recent human history.

The court's annual budget is 90 million dollars. Nine judges were hired, but their work, at least as claimed in the report of the International Crisis Group, is burdened by incompetence and bureaucracy, so they are far behind the planned pace. The court process has just ended with an acquittal, the only one that was conducted from July 1999 to June 7 of this year. By the way, Bagilishemi, accused of participating in the massacre of 45.000 Tutsis, was released due to lack of evidence.

So far, 63 people have been charged in Arusha, 45 of them have been arrested, and nine are on trial. 27 defendants are awaiting trial, while (only) eight have been convicted, although their sentences have not yet been handed down.

Meanwhile, the new government in Rwanda, discouraged by the slowness of the court in Arusha, is taking justice into its own hands. There are about 130 suspects in their prisons, while 22 were convicted in court processes that are considered not to have been conducted according to generally established standards.

Court staff have a long list of complaints. From the fact that they have nowhere to store court gowns, personal clothes and bags, to serious objections such as: difficult collection of evidence, protection of witnesses, apprehension of suspects.

BEAUTIFUL DEO THE REALITIES: But Arusha represents the more beautiful side of African reality. It is able to provide hospitality to UN staff - 800 of them from 80 countries. The town has a conference center, several hotels, shops and a hospital. The problem of constant power outages has also been solved, so that the court mostly uses its own generator. Banks have trained themselves to deal with large dollar sums intended for UN staff.

In addition to all these chronic problems, the court in Arusha has also achieved successes. In 1998, he condemned the former Prime Minister of Rwanda, Jean Kambanda, for genocide and crimes against humanity. It was the first trial of such a high-ranking government official for such serious crimes. According to Kingsley Moghalu, the court's spokesman, this is a precedent by which, in the future and in other courts, Chilean dictator General Pinochet and former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević could be tried. In late April, Kenyan police arrested Anglican bishop Samuel Musabajiman, also accused of genocide.

The court in Arusha represents a turning point in international law. Namely, it was established here that rape is an aspect of genocide. The trial of the first woman (also a former government minister) accused of genocide is about to begin. The court is trying to develop the concept of "restorative justice", helping crime victims and their families.

In early June, another court, in another part of the world, found two Catholic nuns guilty of complicity in the genocide in Rwanda. It has been proven that the sisters Maria and Gertrude handed over more than 7000 members of the Tutsi to their killers. In addition, they procured gasoline that was later used to set fire to a shelter in which there were about 500 people. It was the first case that a jury of citizens of one country, in this case Belgium, found guilty of crimes committed in another. Namely, seven years ago, Belgium accepted a law according to which its courts can try crimes committed elsewhere in the world. It should be said that there is also a historical connection between this European country and Runada. Belgium was the colonial power in Rwanda, and the nuns sought refuge there. If other countries followed Belgium, a strong message would be sent to criminals around the world: it is impossible to escape from justice!

THE SECOND IMPRESSION: In addition to Arusha, war crimes are dealt with by the court in The Hague. This court, of course, gives a very different impression. Founded a year before the court in Arusha, it was initially conceived as an attempt by Western countries to soothe their own consciences because they did not stop the atrocities in the Balkans. Although so far he has not convicted any high-ranking representative of the government, like the one in Arusha, he has brought about a hundred public indictments (nothing is reliably known about the number of secret ones, but it could be at least twice as high). Thirty-eight people of various nationalities are awaiting trial, 41 trials are ongoing, and four convicts are already serving their sentences. To date, the Hague Tribunal has spent more than 470 million dollars from the UN budget alone.

The Hague Tribunal is obviously privileged compared to the one in Arusha. Its budget is slightly larger, and its staff is more numerous. However, it also has funds that it receives from other sources. So he received a new courtroom as a gift from the British government a few years ago. The Dutch government provides him with security services. The Tanzanian government certainly cannot provide that to the court in Arusha…

Persons on the list of suspects of the Hague Court are arrested by NATO forces stationed in Bosnia. The court in Arusha can only count on the police of West African francophone countries. Of course, if they "run into" them. The witnesses are mostly illiterate peasants, who have a hard time remembering past events. The Hague Court has intelligence information from Western countries, satellite images and high-tech methods.

EXPERIENCES: Well, is this the best way for justice to be served when it comes to such serious crimes? Experience from the past, above all that with the trials of Nazis after the Second World War, has shown that it is not possible to bring all criminals to court. In other words, many will go unpunished. The prosecutor of the Hague Court, Carla del Ponte, has a simple answer to these dilemmas: those most responsible should be caught. Undoubtedly, the crown of these efforts would be the trial of one man, whose image is on the poster pasted on the wall of Mrs. del Ponte's office. The poster says "Wanted" and the amount of the reward for his arrest: five million dollars. It is, of course, about the former president of the FRY, Slobodan Milošević.

We should not forget the issue of adequate punishment. Is there a sufficiently severe punishment for the crime of genocide? In Africa, convicts live better in prisons than their surviving victims. The problem is so serious that prisons are being considered that would meet general standards, but at the same time, the convicts would perceive them as punishment.

There are also problems with the perception of the war crimes court. There is a widespread belief in Serbia that this is a Western conspiracy. Those on trial in Arusha think similarly.

In general, it could be said that the victors in war generally avoid facing justice. No one considered the American or British bombing of German civilians in World War II a war crime. Russian soldiers, most likely, will not be held accountable for crimes committed in Chechnya. The Hague Tribunal investigated the airstrikes on the FRY and concluded, rightly or wrongly, that there was no reason to file an indictment. Critics might therefore conclude that war crimes tribunals are selective: not only do they bring before them only a few people, but also only some wars.

ESTABLISHMENT NEW: The answer to this problem would be, at least in part, to establish new courts wherever war crimes might possibly be committed. The recent violence in Burundi, Congo and East Timor are prime examples. But we should not forget the horrors from the not-so-distant past. The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s committed horrific crimes. Some even believe that Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford, should be held accountable for human rights violations in Chile and other parts of the world during the Cold War. For now, he is only called as a witness.

The next war crimes tribunal will most likely deal with the 22-year conflict in Sierra Leone where rebels have committed horrific atrocities against civilians. We are talking about mass murders, blood-curdling massacres, but not genocide, given that their goal is not the destruction of an entire ethnic group. The new court is based on an agreement between the UN and the government of Sierra Leone that was reached last October. If funds are found ($XNUMX million for the first year), the seat of the court would be in Freetown.

A further step in this direction is the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court for war crimes. Its statute was accepted in Rome in July 1998. To date, 139 countries have signed it, so it can be expected that the permanent court will start operating in two years. The US asked for guarantees that its soldiers would never be brought before a court, which even the closest American allies rejected as completely unacceptable and illegal. If America continues to resist, Europe, Canada, Australia and other countries will have to throw their weight behind this institution. Because the existing two courts show how much political will, money, expertise and sweat is needed for such a court to perform its work.